THE CONGREGATIONALIST.
The bill has been framed adroitly. By providing for the colored race and for the white precisely the same educational advantages, making no discrimination whatever, it is attempted to evade those provisions of the national Constitution which would be infringed by the least effort to deprive either whites or blacks of any educational facilities supplied to the other race. But the bill is so drawn that it neutralizes the operation of this principle of equality. Whites and blacks will not be on the equal footing plainly intended by the Constitution unless they possess in law every privilege granted them in the other States, among which is that of studying in the same schools. Should this matter be carried to the United States Supreme Court—as we have no doubt that it will be, if necessary—there can be little question but that the bill will be pronounced unconstitutional. However this may be, it is too silly and unjust a measure ever to win the respect of judicious and honorable people, in any part of our country.
It is not improbable, and is greatly to be hoped, that as soon as the real nature of this bill becomes understood generally, an opposition to it will spring up, perhaps even in Georgia, which will put a quietus upon it once for all. If the bill pass, Georgia certainly will have taken a long and significant step back towards the dark ages, and business capital, as well as modern ideas, will give such a State the cold shoulder for years to come. Moreover, if any attempt should be made to enforce the law contained in the bill, there will be such a stir throughout the whole country as is not often witnessed.
THE CHICAGO ADVANCE.
Such a law and the execution of it is no new thing in that State. Nor is the application of it to missionary workers anything new in Georgia. Among the Cherokees in the northern part of the State the American Board had a mission planted so early as 1815, and this by 1831 had brought the people on to a large degree of Christian civilization, so that they had schools and churches and were living, as an old army officer told our informant, in a more enlightened way than the white “crackers” around them. But Georgia wanted their lands for the toil of slaves. Of course a sham treaty was the first step. The next was a law passed by the Legislature requiring all white men residing on the Cherokee lands to take the oath of allegiance to the State of Georgia, and get a license from the Governor under penalty, if found there after the first of March, 1831, of penitentiary imprisonment at hard labor, not less than four years. The missionaries, well knowing that this was in open conflict with their rights, under the constitution, laws and treaties of the United States, remained at their post. Rev. S. A. Worcester, D.D., and Dr. Butler, of the American Board Mission, Rev. Mr. Trott, a Methodist Missionary, and a Cherokee named Proctor, and seven others, mostly teachers, were arrested. The latter was for two nights chained by the neck to the wall of the house and by the ankle to Mr. Trott, and was marched two days chained by the neck to a wagon; and Dr. Butler was marched also with a chain about his neck, and part of the time in pitch darkness, with the chain fastened to the neck of a horse. After eleven days’ confinement in a filthy log prison, Judge Clayton sentenced Worcester and Butler to four years of hard labor in prison. To prison they were taken and set at hard labor. A memorial was sent to Andrew Jackson. He replied by Secretary-of-War Lewis Cass that the laws of Georgia had rendered the laws of Congress “inoperative,” and he had no power to interfere. Old Hickory, who could swear by the Eternal that South Carolina should not nullify in a matter of tariff, when slavery lifted its behest, had to succumb! The case was then carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, Chief Justice Marshall presiding, and rendering the decision which reversed and annulled the State action, and ordered the discharge of the prisoners. Here then came in Georgia’s great act of nullification. It refused to obey, and Gen. Jackson said, “Marshall may enforce his decision for himself.” Georgia had her way, awaiting the army of Sherman.
For sixteen months those godly missionaries languished in prison at hard labor. They refused to accept of pardon before they were incarcerated, on condition that they would never again reside in the Cherokee country. And when they came out they went back there to live.
We mention these facts to show to the Governor and Legislature of that State what manner of people are these, whom they propose, in a repetition of history, to thrust into the same filthy prison and chain-gang, which all the world is coming to recognize as one of Georgia’s relics of barbarism.
THE CHRISTIAN UNION.
If this bill becomes a law, it will be possible to punish a professor in the Atlanta University who chooses to teach his own child in the class-room of the University, by making him the associate of thieves and outlaws in the chain-gang for a year. This is simply monstrous, and, in spite of the practically unanimous vote of the lower branch of the Legislature, we do not believe that the intelligent people of Georgia favor any such infamous measure. If they do, then the curse of ignorance and barbarism which once blighted and limited the intellectual and the moral life of the South has not yet been thrown off by that State. The Christian Union, believing heartily in the Christian principle of putting behind the things that are past, has used, and will use, all its influence to soften sectional differences, to destroy sectional hatred, and to make in fact as in name one nation of a people who have shown by their unparalleled sacrifices the vigor and the purity of their patriotism. Those who strive to revive the bitter memories of the past, and to make issues now settled capital for success, the Christian Union has opposed and will oppose to the utmost of its ability; regarding all such men, whether Republicans or Democrats, as either too ignorant to be followed or too selfish to be trusted. But the adoption of such a measure as the bill now pending before the Georgia Legislature will set back the movement toward unity a decade, will put into the hands of selfish politicians in the North the strongest possible weapons against the South, and will discourage and cast down all intelligent and sober-minded lovers of their country. The people of Georgia have shown too much intelligence and good spirit to destroy the influence which they are rapidly acquiring in national affairs and to disgrace a record which, as a whole, has been admirable; we cannot believe they will do it. The South does not yet understand the inestimable service which the North rendered it in its hour of defeat by at once setting in motion educational agencies among the negroes. If now, in the face of such a service as this, rendered in the utmost unselfishness and sustained by the greatest generosity, the great State of Georgia shall lend its name to such a piece of barbarism as the Glenn Bill, it will be guilty of a piece of ingratitude almost without parallel. We refuse to believe that this bill represents the sentiment of the State.